All Posts by Jerry Hildenbrand

Ask anyone who has a Logitech Revue, and they'll tell you it can be a temperamental son-of-a-biscuit every now and then. Most of us still love the Google TV experience, but owning a Revue means you'll need to get familiar with work-arounds. Here's a simple one to get the Google play update running on your Revue if you got stuck in the "update available/updating" loop:
Pull the plug for 10...

Android app developers work hard. They deliver us a lot of good apps and we all love using them, and I think I speak for everyone when I say thanks to all the hard working folks who make our phones "funner" to use or more productive. But software is never bug free, and crashes happen -- it's a fact of life for all programmers. Add in the fact that the Android platform allows for almost endless...

The HTC One X has been rooted before it's official release thanks to Android hacker Paul O'Brien. With his Superboot method, any One X that has S-Off, or has been unlocked via the official HTCDev bootloader tool will be subject to this method, which uses the fastboot protocol to boot an insecure image that automatically loads the files needed for a system-wide root. It's easy, it works well, and...

The Linux Foundation has announced four new members this week, including the familiar face of NVIDIA. As most of us here know, Android is based on the Linux kernel, and NVIDIA has become a major hardware player on our phones and tablets. But what does this mean for Android users?
On the surface, it's excellent news. NVIDIA will invest money into advancing Linux, and by proxy, all open-source...

We've had a couple of days to settle in (and debate) the new Google Play branding that covers the old Android Market, Google Book, Google Music, and Google Movies content stores. We've also been enjoying the sales in effect on apps and digital media (get Flick Golf Extreme from Google Play for a quarter before it's too late!) and filling our devices with content. But the name is a bit of a...

Rovio has revamped Angry Birds Seasons with an early sprint update, featuring a cherry blossom theme. You'll now have 15 new levels to play through, and three new bonus levels. We're used to seasonal updates from Rovio, and as usual, this one is already been well received by the missus, and she says "it's great, go update it"! Who am I to argue? Market, erm, Google Play download links are after...

With hundreds of thousands of apps in the Android Market Google Play, it can be hard to find the ones you need to try. That's where we come in, and I just found one that screams to be installed. It's called The Chicken Bandit, and the premise is simple -- you're a cowboy, who rides a giant chicken, and robs trains protected by robots. (Go on, pinch yourself, you're awake).
Gameplay is easy...

Unlike the Windows Phone SDK, the Android SDK works fairly well with the Windows 8 consumer preview. We know a lot of you folks want to be on the bleeding edge, and for Windows users that means installing the Win8 preview on your computer at home. I decided to dive in and see what was working, and what wasn't, and installed it on my laptop to test things out.
The verdict -- most everything works...

The HTC Vivid should be seeing Ice Cream Sandwich shortly, and if you're the brave type there's a leak out in the wild you can flash today. When HTC and AT&T announced the HTC One X was coming to AT&T, there was a small part in the press release about the Vivid and it's ICS update, and that's been reinforced today in a press release for a new Beats Audio wireless speaker system exclusive...

There's been rumors running rampant lately about the next Nexus phone, and just who might be making it. While it's a bit early to guess, we all have a preference, and it's always OK to wish -- just don't expect any predictions. OEMs showed us a lot to like during MWC 2012, and some of the new designs surely turned some heads (that HTC One S looks like a real winner to this blogger) and we can't...

When Adobe said they wouldn't be developing Flash Player for Android to work with any new versions, they also promised to keep the current version up-to-date with critical fixes and security patches. Once again, they show us that they really mean what they say, and there's another update for Flash in the Android Market. The fixes include events for handling a crash would could lead to code...

We're all back home and settled in from Mobile World Congress, and it's time to kick off another weekly photo contest! The subject this week is something near and dear to my heart, and inspired by +Michael Ceriello when we asked what you guys and gals wanted to see. We're talking about food.
Grab your Android phones, head into the kitchen or out to your favorite resturant and show us some...

Anyone doing development for Android (or any software platform) knows that good tools are the most important part of the whole process. We've seen that the Android team has been hard at work to improve development and debugging tools, and they're still at it. The ADT plugin for Eclipse and the SDK tools/platform-tools have a major upgrade underway, and are at the third beta preview. Developers...

HTC has announced that they are opening up a bit more of the OpenSense SDK, and including APIs for Beats Audio, the Sense 4.0 lockscreen, Mobile device management, and the MediaLink HD system. This opens many new features to application developers, and apps can include these calls so that they are differentiated on HTC Sense phones, yet function on all phones with the same software build.
In...

The NSA (National Security Agency) has developed an Android phone that meets "Top Secret" criteria using off-the-shelf components. Dubbed the fishbowl phone, 100 units were built and deployed by IAD (Information Assurance Directorate) and division head Margaret Salter says that anyone can recreate the phones using the specs published at the NSA website.
The plan was to buy commercial...

Kids love to play with our tablets. They're colorful, active, and entertaining -- exactly what a kid likes (no matter what age). But many of us don't feel comfortable letting our kids handle a seemingly delicate, very expensive, piece of glass and plastic. Archos gets this, and they have announced the 7-inch ChildPad. Even better, they understand that we're reluctant to spend upwards of $500 on...

Let's file this under "anything for a story about Android". The New York Times has decided that Android is also "vulnerable" to apps being able to see your pictures, just like it was designed to do. It all stems from some press recently where iOS had a loophole that allowed apps without permissions to access photos stored on a user's mobile device. There is a big difference here though, and it's...

If you've got a grandfathered unlimited data plan through AT&T, you're about to be throttled once you hit a 3GB ceiling per AT&T's new official policy. Users who consume 3GB of data with a 3G device, or 5GB of data with a LTE device will be throttled back to Edge speeds until the new billing cycle begins. Because of recent consumer complaints AT&T was forced to draft an official...

Besides the LG Viper 4G, Sprint will be getting at least nine other devices that run Google Wallet by years end, says Google's VP of Wallet and Payments Osama Bedier. During the Mobile Money: Delivering Innovative Mobile Payment Services panel in Barcelona during Mobile World Congress 2012, Bedier said Sprint will introduce "at least 10 additional phones" with support for Google Wallet this year...

Google's controversial new privacy policy goes into effect today, and depending on which part of the Internet you're in, it's either a blessing or an act of war against our personal information. There's a lot of confusion out there, and chances are anyone who says they understand it all are probably not being very truthful. We're going to try and go over what's changed, and discuss what it might...